Philosophy Now Forum

Yon Yalvin wrote:...

I don't know how old the earth is. I'm not sure that anyone really does. ...

Age of the Earth

Arising_uk wrote:

Yon Yalvin wrote:...

I don't know how old the earth is. I'm not sure that anyone really does. ...

Age of the Earth

What does a wikipedia article mean? Is this a sacred text?

I am well familiar that the scientific community has claims about the age of the earth and evidence to support these claims. I'm not sure that this amounts to knowledge. These claims depend on all sorts of presuppositions that are unsupported. I'm generally skeptical of scientific claims that deal with the distant past.

uwot wrote:

Yon Yalvin wrote:So I think the real question for those considering Christianity is: did Jesus actually raise from the dead? Is there any evidence to suggest that this is the case? I believe that there, indeed, is.

Presumably that is the same evidence that I am familiar with. What, other than credulity, accounts for our different interpretations?

I suppose that would depend on each bit of evidence and how you explain or interpret it. It may be difficult to generally address every interpretation of every piece of evidence. What you're asking is a pretty big question: "what, at the end of the day, is the real difference between belief and unbelief concerning Christianity?" This question would take us in a different direction. Is this what you're asking?

Yon Yalvin wrote:What does a wikipedia article mean? Is this a sacred text?

No more than the Bible is.

I am well familiar that the scientific community has claims about the age of the earth and evidence to support these claims. I'm not sure that this amounts to knowledge. ...

Tell me what you think amounts to knowledge?

These claims depend on all sorts of presuppositions that are unsupported. ...

Which unsupported presuppositions are you thinking about?

I'm generally skeptical of scientific claims that deal with the distant past.

Why?

Yon Yalvin wrote:

Sappho de Miranda wrote:More specifically, iff your God exists, why did your God create such a violent Universe?

So violence is everything that's opposed to life? That which damages life?

You asked for a definition of violence to which I have provided a laypersons, everyday understanding.

You then vary that definition which I give... Why?

Violence - using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

There is nothing in the definition that refers to 'everything', nor was violence juxtaposed as an opposition to life, so your answer does not address the definition of violence that you required.

In that case it seems to me that the only relevant violence is the violence that we experience from nature on our own planet. I'm not too concerned about galaxies colliding. Who's being hurt by that? If anything it's just an amazing spectacle to observe. And I, for one, am glad that all of the dinosaurs are dead. They've left behind some very useful organic material and having them around today would make human civilization almost impossible. So does this really upset you?

My question speaks to the nature of your God. I put it to you that your God is extraordinarily violent and the universe serves as evidence.

I won't go on, except to say you have not answered the question... Why is your God so violent?

(That useful, organic material left behind by dinosaurs, could have easily been created by less violent and more loving means. Yet the evidence shows your God preferred a more violent means of extracting that useful material to which you refer)

Sappho de Miranda wrote:

Yon Yalvin wrote:

Sappho de Miranda wrote:More specifically, iff your God exists, why did your God create such a violent Universe?

So violence is everything that's opposed to life? That which damages life?

You asked for a definition of violence to which I have provided a laypersons, everyday understanding.

You then vary that definition which I give... Why?

Violence - using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

If this is the case then, strictly speaking, the universe is not violent at all because the universe has no intentions.

My question speaks to the nature of your God. I put it to you that your God is extraordinarily violent and the universe serves as evidence.

I won't go on, except to say you have not answered the question... Why is your God so violent?

(That useful, organic material left behind by dinosaurs, could have easily been created by less violent and more loving means. Yet the evidence shows your God preferred a more violent means of extracting that useful material to which you refer)

This goes a step further to say that God is responsible for everything that happens in the universe. Therefore the events you mentioned that hurt, damage, and kill life are not impersonal, but personal. God, ultimately, is the one who is doing these things. I agree with this. Does this make God violent? If violence is simply using physical force meant to hurt, damage, or kill someone then yes, God is violent. But according to this definition so is a surgeon who is removing a harmful tumor. The surgeon inflicts physical force intending to hurt someone temporarily, but his ultimate intentions are to heal the person he is hurting. Does this make the surgeon violent? If violence has a greater purpose then is it justifiable? Defending the weak by using deadly force is also violent, but in many situations laudable. So I don't see violence in and of itself as a bad thing.

Does God have the right to inflict violence on his creatures? On a purely human level we would say that no human being has the right to inflict unjustified violence on another. Certain violence, it seems, can be justified. Violence for the sake of justice. Violence for the sake of defense.

But what about the creator? He gives life and sustains life. Does he have the right to take it away when and how he pleases? Yes because it came from him and belongs to him. He especially has this right when his creatures violate his commands. Or is God obligated to continue to provide for and sustain creatures that are living in rebellion to him?

Arising_uk wrote:Tell me what you think amounts to knowledge?

Justified, true belief. The formulations of the scientific community are certainly beliefs, but whether they are justified or true is, I think, an open question. There have been plenty of scientific formulations and systems that we once "knew to be true" but now we "know" are false. Plenty of scientists will tell you that science isn't so much about discovering objective truth as it is about learning how to use the world that we experience for good.

Which unsupported presuppositions are you thinking about?

These claims assume:
Naturalism - that no divine beings intervened at any point in the process. There is no great reason to assume this unless one is already committed to atheism.
The uniformity of natural law - that the laws we experience as consistent today have always been the same and will always be the same. There is no reason to believe this.
That our natural and artificial observation faculties are reliable - they assume that the instruments we've made to make these measurements are reliable and that our own instruments for sensing the world (eyes, ears, hands, etc...) are reliable enough for us to speak authoritatively about what happened before any person ever existed.

Why?

It seems to me to be somewhat out of reach for human knowledge. Can we really "know" what happened before we were around? We find all sorts of data in the natural world and we apply certain interpretations to that data but I think that speaking in confident terms about the age of the earth and the age of the universe is more hubris than it is legitimate knowledge.

yon a simple question.does heaven move?do you move to get there and once ya there does it heaven that is move.?not trying to be clever here just would like your ideas.considering jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you.

Yon Yalvin wrote:I am well familiar that the scientific community has claims about the age of the earth and evidence to support these claims.

There is no such thing as a scientific community that is in opposition to the religious community. Being a scientist is not incompatible with being religious, it is just that believing that the answers to all questions are to be found between the front and back cover of a single book is unscientific.

Yon Yalvin wrote:I'm not sure that this amounts to knowledge. These claims depend on all sorts of presuppositions that are unsupported. I'm generally skeptical of scientific claims that deal with the distant past.

That's because you don't understand scientific knowledge. The difference between science and religion is that science will take things which are true, eg 'There are lots of rocks that looks like the petrified remains of giant lizard like things.' and turn it into a hypothesis, 'Dinosaurs walked the Earth'. It is an absolute fact that fossils exist; that is knowledge. The most plausible explanation is that dinosaurs did exist. Any other explanation may well make sense in a particular context, but that context will be predicated on entities, gods and demons most likely, for which there is no evidence, no knowledge, no fossils.
What religion does, by contrast is take a premise and defend it with an increasingly elaborate, and preposterous, fable; much like astrologers or psychoanalysts do. Some religious nuts will rationalise their belief in such a way that it is completely protected against falsification. You say:

Yon Yalvin wrote:...I believe that the Bible alone is inerrant. Man's attempts to systematize the teachings of the Bible can be excellent, but I don't believe they're ever perfect.

So there isn't anything which might not be true and it is only our imperfect systematising that makes something like this look as if god is a psychopath:

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Perhaps you could systematise that in a nice way for us.

Yon Yalvin wrote:
I am well familiar that the scientific community has claims about the age of the earth and evidence to support these claims. I'm not sure that this amounts to knowledge. These claims depend on all sorts of presuppositions that are unsupported. I'm generally skeptical of scientific claims that deal with the distant past.

Do you see your skepticism of science as being a different type of skepticism displayed by someone who might doubt theological events that deal with the past?

uwot wrote:There is no such thing as a scientific community that is in opposition to the religious community. Being a scientist is not incompatible with being religious, it is just that believing that the answers to all questions are to be found between the front and back cover of a single book is unscientific.

I don't think that there's any conflict between science and religion per se. In fact, there's a good case to be made that the real conflict is between science and naturalism. http://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Re ... 0199812098

uwot wrote:That's because you don't understand scientific knowledge. The difference between science and religion is that science will take things which are true, eg 'There are lots of rocks that looks like the petrified remains of giant lizard like things.' and turn it into a hypothesis, 'Dinosaurs walked the Earth'. It is an absolute fact that fossils exist; that is knowledge. The most plausible explanation is that dinosaurs did exist. Any other explanation may well make sense in a particular context, but that context will be predicated on entities, gods and demons most likely, for which there is no evidence, no knowledge, no fossils.
What religion does, by contrast is take a premise and defend it with an increasingly elaborate, and preposterous, fable; much like astrologers or psychoanalysts do. Some religious nuts will rationalise their belief in such a way that it is completely protected against falsification.

This is an unfortunate assessment of the difference between science and religion. And it is obviously full of presuppositions and prejudices against religion and toward science. A paragraph like this should be predicated with: "In my opinion..." because you're expressing an opinion. And you've not even defended this expression. Does this sort of thing pass around these parts as legitimate philosophy? Or do you just get a lot of positive reinforcement from people who agree with your opinions?

You're analyses boils down to: "Science deals with facts. Religion deals with imaginary fables." This is an over-estimation of science and a complete misunderstanding of true religion. It's also what we call a "straw man argument". As long as you categorize all religious claims as "imaginary fables" you can dismiss them out of hand without further consideration.

uwot wrote:So there isn't anything which might not be true and it is only our imperfect systematising that makes something like this look as if god is a psychopath:

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Perhaps you could systematise that in a nice way for us.

The reason you may find the above passage offensive is not because of human systematizing but because you have an unbiblical system of values and priorities. If I had to guess (and I could be wrong, please correct me if I am), you're probably a secular humanist, possibly utilitarian. You believe that the purpose of human life is to promote the wellbeing of human life. So anything that challenges human freedom or threatens human wellbeing is "psycopathic". In the passage you've quoted we see a God who does not tolerate the free human decision to worship false gods and a God who reserves the right to take human life as he sees fit. This offends your values and priorities. So you reject such a God because he does not serve your values and priorities. But what if your values and priorities are wrong? What is God's universe is about something bigger than human wellbeing?

This is an aside, I'm not accusing you of this but I've noticed a case of double talk in lots of skeptics. They're offended at the idea of a God who cares about humanity. They think that God too small and petty. And yet they're also offended at the idea of a God who has other priorities than human wellbeing. They find that God capricious and cruel.

jackles wrote:yon a simple question.does heaven move?do you move to get there and once ya there does it heaven that is move.?not trying to be clever here just would like your ideas.considering jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you.

You're asking about the kingdom of God, it seems. From a Biblical perspective, the kingdom of God is: "anywhere where God's word has authority. Where the word of God is heard and obeyed." The kingdom of God is present today, scattered among the nations in the hearts of those who believe. The kingdom of God is advancing as more people and nations submit to the Lordship of Christ. At the end of the age Jesus will return and finally remove all opposition and God's kingdom will cover the whole planet.

So it is a physical place. But it's more than a place. It's also a people.

Ginkgo wrote:

Yon Yalvin wrote:
I am well familiar that the scientific community has claims about the age of the earth and evidence to support these claims. I'm not sure that this amounts to knowledge. These claims depend on all sorts of presuppositions that are unsupported. I'm generally skeptical of scientific claims that deal with the distant past.

Do you see your skepticism of science as being a different type of skepticism displayed by someone who might doubt theological events that deal with the past?

I think that the skepticisms are probably very similar. Someone who is skeptical of religious claims doubts the honesty or reliability of personal witness. They also doubt the possibility of divine interaction with the world because of commitments to naturalism. I doubt scientific claims about the distant past because I am skeptical of the scope of science and the intentions of humanity. I love science and think that it's incredibly useful and godly. God commanded us to practice science. But I don't think that science is what science thinks it is. In other words I don't think that the human mind is capable of discovering and understanding all that we think we can understand. I think we have too high an estimation of our own mental powers.

Yon Yalvin wrote:This is an unfortunate assessment of the difference between science and religion. And it is obviously full of presuppositions and prejudices against religion and toward science. A paragraph like this should be predicated with: "In my opinion..." because you're expressing an opinion.

No I'm not. Like I said, there is a difference between a fact and an hypothesis. It is not an opinion that there are 'fossils', there really are rocks that look like petrified bones.

Yon Yalvin wrote:And you've not even defended this expression. Does this sort of thing pass around these parts as legitimate philosophy?

No it doesn't. Does that sort of cheap ad hominem pass for legitimate philosophy in your parts?

Yon Yalvin wrote:Or do you just get a lot of positive reinforcement from people who agree with your opinions?

No. You opened this thread with the claim that:

Yon Yalvin wrote:After trolling around on this board it appears as if there are a few theists but I've yet to spot a Christian.

If you had been paying attention, you would be aware of the level of agreement I receive.

Yon Yalvin wrote:You're analyses boils down to: "Science deals with facts. Religion deals with imaginary fables." This is an over-estimation of science and a complete misunderstanding of true religion.

No it isn't. Once again, it is a fact that there are fossils, that is not over-estimating science. Science tries to explain facts of that nature without reference to a bronze age creation myth, religion tries to accommodate it within that myth. How is your "true religion" different?

Yon Yalvin wrote:It's also what we call a "straw man argument".

You need to specify who this 'we' includes, but it is not a straw man in my opinion.

Yon Yalvin wrote:As long as you categorize all religious claims as "imaginary fables" you can dismiss them out of hand without further consideration.

I don't categorise them all as imaginary fables. I think the overwhelming probability is that all religious scripture is imaginary fables, but we, the contributors to the forum, have discussed religious claims that go beyond scripture; here for instance: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=10204&start=15

Yon Yalvin wrote:The reason you may find the above passage offensive is not because of human systematizing but because you have an unbiblical system of values and priorities.

I'm not offended by it. I think it describes a god who is mental, and the idea that there is a biblical system of values and priorities that can interpret it as describing a god that isn't a nutter, can only be held by someone who is themselves a complete nutter.

Yon Yalvin wrote:If I had to guess (and I could be wrong, please correct me if I am), you're probably a secular humanist, possibly utilitarian. You believe that the purpose of human life is to promote the wellbeing of human life. So anything that challenges human freedom or threatens human wellbeing is "psycopathic".

Well, that is the hypothesis you make on the basis of the interaction we have had so far. I have to say, it seems to me that people who are of a religious mind set are in the habit of creating a story that is unsupported by the evidence: I do not believe that life has a purpose, you are mythologizing me.

Yon Yalvin wrote:In the passage you've quoted we see a God who does not tolerate the free human decision to worship false gods and a God who reserves the right to take human life as he sees fit. This offends your values and priorities. So you reject such a God because he does not serve your values and priorities.

Not so. I reject such a god, because there is absolutely no evidence for it.

Yon Yalvin wrote:But what if your values and priorities are wrong? What is God's universe is about something bigger than human wellbeing?

What biblical reason might I have for thinking so?

Yon Yalvin wrote:This is an aside, I'm not accusing you of this but I've noticed a case of double talk in lots of skeptics. They're offended at the idea of a God who cares about humanity. They think that God too small and petty. And yet they're also offended at the idea of a God who has other priorities than human wellbeing. They find that God capricious and cruel.

As you are not accusing me of such "double talk", why bring it up?
Like I said, it would be a waste of time to challenge the consistency of your story, all you have done in the above is confirm that. It is pointless to argue about the biblical account if "God's universe is about something bigger than human wellbeing?", because that is not the biblical account. Pointless too, because you have a 'biblical system of values and priorities' that allows you to interpret an "inerrant" text in any way that pleases you, and I don't.

Yon Yalvin wrote:Justified, true belief. The formulations of the scientific community are certainly beliefs, but whether they are justified or true is, I think, an open question. ...

I think the 'true' may be open with respect to metaphysics or even metaphysical ontology but the 'justified' is justified by the method they use.

There have been plenty of scientific formulations and systems that we once "knew to be true" but now we "know" are false. ...

Thereby justifying their method I'd say, something the religious do not appear to be able to do.

Plenty of scientists will tell you that science isn't so much about discovering objective truth as it is about learning how to use the world that we experience for good.

Would they? Not the ones I've met wouldn't as most appear to think their activities amoral. I think you mean absolute rather than objective as they think that, depending upon your definition of objective, that there is a world that is not dependent upon there being subjectivities, although it's true that in the very small Physics has abandoned absolute truth or certainty for just being incredibly probable, like 99.9999999999999% true, pretty bloody probable in other words.

These claims assume:
Naturalism - that no divine beings intervened at any point in the process. There is no great reason to assume this unless one is already committed to atheism.

The is no great reason to have such things in the scientific process as they add no explanatory power to the process.

The uniformity of natural law - that the laws we experience as consistent today have always been the same and will always be the same. There is no reason to believe this.

Which is why they are not absolute laws but law like and subject to revision, its just that so far nothing has been found to show them in error. Hume's problem may apply to induction but it is because there are regularities that we note such things.

That our natural and artificial observation faculties are reliable - they assume that the instruments we've made to make these measurements are reliable and that our own instruments for sensing the world (eyes, ears, hands, etc...) are reliable enough for us to speak authoritatively about what happened before any person ever existed.

You assume they are not? Since you think they aren't why do you not apply this unreliability to the authorities that speak knowledgeably about 'God/'s'? Something that has never been demonstrably shown, unlike the facts and evidence that science works with.

It seems to me to be somewhat out of reach for human knowledge. Can we really "know" what happened before we were around? ...

Surely your justified true belief lets us really 'know' such things?

We find all sorts of data in the natural world and we apply certain interpretations to that data but I think that speaking in confident terms about the age of the earth and the age of the universe is more hubris than it is legitimate knowledge.

I disagree, its reason based upon facts in evidence, i.e. we know how radioactives decay and the time spans so we can date objects by this fact. We see fossilised bones and can reason about how long it must have taken for such things to have occurred.

My justified true belief is that you are a Young Earth Creationist and as such your belief allows you to doubt the scientific work done by true believing christians.